


A Snapshot of Home

by busdriver



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: ??????? gonna start a trend, Angst, Established Relationship, Nonbinary Kurapika, poignancy without plot, some tenderness thrown in as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:45:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busdriver/pseuds/busdriver
Summary: A snapshot into Kurutian anguish and Leorio's love and a glimpse of home. no plot really / NB kurapika + they/them pronouns





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is some purple prose-y/plotless stuff I found in my drafts from about 3 years ago. but its nice and tender so i thought i might publish it ^______^
> 
> Kurapika uses they/them pronouns in this piece :*

Sometimes, Leorio could tell. He saw the way they fidgeted, the way their eyes darted around the room and the way their hands began to shake, ever so slightly. He was swift when he saw it coming, guiding them discreetly away from wherever they were, all the while whispering tender reassurances into blonde locks and take them into the safe embrace of their apartment. But sometimes he didn’t notice. He was an extrovert by nature, and often got caught up by the allure of conversation or alcohol, and he would miss the signs. They would disappear and he’d find them hours later in a crumpled, sobbing heap on the bathroom floor of their apartment. It was hard to suppress his guilt when this did happen. As he couldn’t massage the balm of his affection into Kurapika’s aching bones he could at the very least, be there for them, curl his body into the shape of theirs and allow mere presence to fill the void. He would berate himself for days when he couldn’t even achieve that.  
For Kurapika, emotion never came as a gentle or cleansing spit from the sky; it came as golf ball sized hailstones, torn from the deepest recesses of their soul. Their wails carried the anguish of the 128 other Kuruta who haunted them, a guttural song that bore each individual name of their slaughtered comrades. Somewhere in the process of grieving they’d gotten lost, stuck in the stage of anger, and they’d resigned to live under a canopy of pseudo-apathy, brutally shoving any emotion that was not rage to the side, which left them in a comfortable numbness. That was until with the right trigger or the right weather, the sticky abyss in their chest reached its slender fingers into their gut and tugged out the agony that they refused to acknowledge. When this happened, Leorio would lie with them, until the tremors stopped and their sobs dulled to an occasional hiccup. Their head on his chest, cooing gentle wordless melodies into their ears, dancing his fingers down the individual vertebrate of their spine, drawing shapes into the curves of their body with deft fingertips. He’d kiss them, softly on the forehead at first, and then he’d meet their soft lips with his own dry ones.  
In some respects, the pair were like the sun and moon, diametrically opposed in more ways than one. Leorio came as picture of warmth and genuineness, fuelled by deep rooted compassion. Dedicated to the practice of saving lives, and aiding others with guiding, weathered hands. Whereas Kurapika was motivated by death, the deaths of those they loved and the lives they wished to take because of it. They reinforced their fragile skin with vitriol and let themselves fall into a cold, distant persona to remain focused on their goals. Even though they let Leorio catch snapshots of their world, no amount of coaxing fingers or tentative suggestions tiptoeing around stability could deter them from their chosen path.  
In amongst their intensity, it was easy for Kurapika to forget Leorio. They wouldn’t call for weeks at a time, and the pair would bicker endlessly about irrelevant and meagre things. In the heat of the moment, scathing words would be exchanged and Kurapika would allow their cold and rigid demeanour seep into the apartment walls. Despite this, Leorio understood.  
Every once in a while after the sobbing had quieted only to a shaky breath and the stillness of the night permeated the small apartment, did Kurapika cup a hand to stubbled cheek and whisper, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” There was some remnant of home they found on his lips, something they had thought to be lost. Until it had traced its way back through their translucent skin under Leorio’s liquid gold touch. They sometimes found themselves paralysed with terror, that perhaps one day, those sensations and Leorio’s body would burn out under their icy breath and they would be left alone again, with a whole new kind of gaping wound in their chest.  
Leorio found solace in their fleeting moments of vulnerability, as he knew he was the only one who got to lay eyes on them, and that Kurapika’s teary confessions meant so much more than any impulsive tongue lashing. So when he’d find the blonde giving him a steely glare after tasting a hint of cigarettes on his tongue, Leorio often absently wondered if they could also taste the half-formed words that sat right at the back of his throat, words that he often had to bitterly catch as they threatened to tumble out of his mouth.  
The thing Kurapika forgot most though, was that sometimes, Leorio needed someone too. Once in a blue moon, he’d wake up in a cold sweat with a name being torn from his throat. He’d reach out frantically for another body, search for another face, the heat of another form in amongst the imminent darkness. And Kurapika would roll over, loop their arms around his chest and wait for his breaths become even, all the while planting gentle kisses on bare skin, letting hot breath and fluttering eyelashes coax him back into restful slumber. Other times, he woke up only to reach out desperate hands and be greeted by cold pillows and an empty space on the other side of the bed. Almost involuntarily he would curl into himself, reach out for his phone and fumble to type something coherent. “I wish you were here. be safe.” When Kurapika’s phone lit up like that, they could almost hear the rustle of sheets and the erratic breaths. It was so foreign to have their chest ache out of affection and yearning for another person, instead of the frantic sadness that shot through their body. Knowing Leorio was on the other end of the phone, with gentle lips and ribs that fit so perfectly into their own made them smile faintly. Those texts served as a reminder, an affirmation that perhaps home could be tangible, perhaps home was within their grasp, and perhaps home could be in the arms of one gangling and impulsive doctor.


End file.
